She peers between the cracks like an old friend looking in upon us, like a handmaiden rested from sleep so she might tend to our collective well-being.

Peek if you must, but rest your eyes upon me nonetheless.

A friend, yes, but more than that.

I scarcely recognize her in such garments, in such clothes woven from desperation’s fair.

She sings to me of lesser times, of that which only she knows, and she feels the heartache just as I feel it, just as I desperately grab at its core in hopes of resting from its grip the anguish it brandishes.

Ah, but she knows.

Wielded like a sword waved to and fro before my face.

A blade.

A weapon.

A terrible thing.

She comes for me now, for us all, and we embrace her like an old friend, as though we might embrace a lost love.

She is the concubine of desperation, of need filled with want filled with restless hope.  She is what we cannot touch yet need desperately.  She is what we cannot see yet long to devour with our eyes.

She is change, longing, pain and joy.  And she knocks relentlessly even as her eyes consume us from without.

Soon her ways will be our ways, her unrest our unrest.  Soon…